The Moon Children

My life started suddenly. I had blessings that no one could deprive me of -- a fair recollection and vivid expectations and a flair for understanding when I was contented.

I was most contented coming to America, and it was a comfort to me, pursuing security and independence. That was how I spent my first year in Florida. I was still young, and I realized this: Money answers all things. But one day out of curiosity or perception I did more than stir and observe, and more than recall. I began to witness like a seer, and I performed. I have to rescue myself, I used to think.

Early that morning I was walking down a beautiful street lined with subtropical trees, called Oakridge Street. The city of Jacksonville was rousing to a lovely sunrise, as I approached Matthew Julian’s and Nadia Fontaine’s house.

Julian was jogging, and now Nadia walked toward her mother’s house. I knew what they were up to: it was part of my foretelling.

People like me skip to different parts of the country to elude the immigration. The joke is this: Like a ghost, I was pushed into a strange world by an invisible and obscure force, leaving the actual world behind. I realized that I was now undergoing a complete, unconstrained altered state of consciousness.

I had been drawn into the infinite torment of Limbo in search of Paradise. It was then, and here and elsewhere in Hell’s Pit, I experienced a vision. Destiny brought me here, not inquisitiveness. I understood precisely how each individual thought that had ever associated with me. Especially, however, I was being shown in moving detail exactly what the New Age is about. And understand that an unseen power is behind this extraordinary phenomenon.

But there is good news. The God that I serve is the Creator, my Lord, and my Master. He is the only God, and He is my Salvation.

Very well. Julian’s attention was drawn to Nadia, and I now noticed that he stopped and walked back. The young woman tried to hurry away, her summer dress rippling in the sweet breezes. I had been expecting her reaction, as the golden sun lighted up her aqua eyes.

Nadia glanced at their duplex building, then at the Spanish moss that hung from various trees. Then she stared at Julian. Because she said nothing, Julian said, "Didn’t you hear my commotion last night?"

When Nadia spoke she stuttered. "I thought I heard something in the basement."

They laughed at each other.

I leered, missing the joke. But here’s what happened, the way I got it. Julian had moved in quietly, yet Nadia said she heard something. I intended to try and check the facts. That’s what I was coming to. Maybe it would interest me to look into this.

They relaxed. Nadia nodded, raisin her hand to show that the red sedan on the curb had belonged to Julian, and then glanced at his feet with no socks. Julian smoothed his hands over his tight shorts, from his thighs to his behind. And you must think it’s nothing, but to me it meant something or other.

In Belize, people gesture as they speak. Most of them are very scandalous. So you see.

Nadia’s career criminal boyfriend, Elgin Taylor, and may he fry in his own fat, crossed her mind. She had always been expected to drop him, but she didn’t. She looked so wishful. Nadia was fond of her kind mother, Sharon Pooler, a nurse, and she said, "My mother is waiting in her house next door for me."

Suddenly, Julian showed Nadia to his apartment and hesitated and said, "Is she okay?"

Sharon was fine. She wanted to see Nadia about Elgin.

Sunlight streaked through the oversized window. Tows of Store-away boxes sat near the patio. Nadia leaned against the balustrade, looking out. At the river’s edge, a dock began. On it was an anhinja, pecking on a mullet.

Julian approached the stairway. "Have a seat, dear heart."

Nadia glanced at the stairs quickly, as if she had just remembered something, and then at the patio. "What are you doing here, Matthew? I heard that you live in New England." She smiled.

"I came here to thaw," Julian said. And to his amazement, he began to believe it.

Nadia sat on the stairs. Julian sat behind her. She thought he had lured her here from something awful. The decision to work with Elgin in his drug business was Nadia’s.

She Brooded. She wondered if Julian was a detective sent here to investigate them.

Elgin was intractable. He marketed drugs because it paid. Nadia loved the money.

She rose and walked to the window. Across the river was Constitution House. Julian recovered from alcohol addiction there, shocking place. Nadia looked at it and said she was leaving.

Julian did not answer.

The air was light, easy to breath. Nadia studied the clearness over the river. Julian thought of home, his family. His father drank. Later, he died and the family struggled.

A world traveler, soon Julian learned witchcraft. But Nadia had a good education and was above any myth of the Dark Ages.

As for me, was dead or I dreaming? Because transcending had turned me back into a Belizean. I knew nothing saved the deception of the lengthening of time and infinity. As time flue, I pursued the terrestrial quest for years with remarkable speed.

At this point my encounter differed from regular dream. Most puzzling was the seeming light-headed gaiety of my mind. However, I realized that here was nothing substantive, nothing that had not ever existed nor could ever exist. I knew that it was nothing else than an outrageous binge of fancy, such as I relished in daydreaming, or in ordinary sleep.

It seemed all a jumble. But it was just as actual to me as is the ghost seen by a person at a séance. Presently, I was grounded. Therefore, my years of roving were years of anxiety.

But how may years had I roamed? Possibly, it could have been several, or just a few seconds -- but I could not estimate it.

And all the while I didn’t know it was Matthew Julian’s spirit that so ruthlessly kept me grounded. But so completely had I exiled my body from my mind that I now entered the inner realms of Julian’s consciousness, his life-force, and Nadia’s.

Now I was unable to revive my own body. It lay dead somewhere though I still occupied the head. I was aware of my surroundings, with feelings. I was aware of my welfare. It was good. As drifters in the streets conceive of bed and breakfast, so conceived I of an escape from the confinement of the dark, of light in place of ignorance. But I fantasized with distinction, a privilege.